It Can Happen Here
by Snarktastic
Summary: A story, like most others, about girls who think it's funny to muck with time and space to meet hot guys. Love, loss, regret... this story has none of these. But it supposedly has comedy. And even that's up for debate.
1. I Love You, Tiny Machine

**It Can Happen Here**

**By:** Snarktastic (better known as Snarky)

**Disclaimer: "**Newsies" belongs to Disney. I own the original characters. That's all about I can say on the subject, really.

**Author's**** Notes: **So. I feel as if I should maybe explain myself before going on with the story. First of all, this is my first "Newsies" story. Be gentle – I'm fragile. Second, this is a **yet another** time-travel fic – number 23,638, give or take a few. I can't help it, you know. The concept is a big ball of yarn, and I am a kitten, drawn to pounce on it. Okay, that metaphor sucks, but you get what I mean. Maybe. Third of all, I didn't exactly come up with idea on my own – it was inspired by bits and pieces of, well, everything. Finally, constructive criticism and reviews are welcome. Flames will be ignored unless your spelling and/or grammar is too atrocious to overlook. Then I'll probably have to make fun of you.

Oh! And before I forget, the title of this chapter comes from the song "Tiny Machine" by the Darling Buds.

* * *

**Chapter 1:** _I Love You, Tiny Machine_

Michelle Jones had left a swath of devastation in her wake. Empty drawers were overturned onto the floor of her dorm room. Her desk, normally a monument of orderliness, was now a complete mess. Now she was digging underneath the bottom bunk bed, pulling out clothes, random pieces of paper, a shoe, and other various things.

Her roommate, Sadie McKenzie, was completely content to ignore her for the moment as she read her e-mail from home on her laptop for the first time that semester (although the semester was more than half over at the time). It became apparent, however, that ignoring her colleague was not possible as she felt the older girl crawling around under her bed. "Just what do you think you're doing?" she finally asked, raising an eyebrow as she glanced over the edge of the bed.

Michelle crawled out from underneath the bed and looked up at Sadie, annoyed. "I can't find my stupid carafe, that's what!"

Sadie furrowed her brow at this. "And just what in the bloody hell is a cuh-raff?" she asked, her accent betraying her Northern England roots.

Michelle stared at Sadie as if her head had suddenly split open, revealing a reptilian being underneath. "You know – the ceramic thing my mom bought me with all the stupid flowers on it – I put my coffee in it to keep it warm…"

"Oh!" Sadie blurted out, realization dawning on her. "Your coffee-holder thingy!"

Michelle visibly twitched at the last phrase. "Yes… my coffee-holder thingy – that's what _normal_ people would call a carafe." She held herself back from smacking the back of Sadie's head as she took a deep breath. "Have you seen it?"

"Not lately." Sadie shrugged as she went back to reading her e-mail. "Maybe you left it in the kitchen. Usually ends up there when you lose it, doesn't it?"

"That's because you usually steal it and use it for that nasty tea you drink," she grumbled as she got up from the floor.

"I 'eard that!" Sadie yelled after Michelle as the other girl walked over to the door.

"You were supposed to, nitwit," Michelle shot back in a singsong voice, reaching for the doorknob. Before she had a chance to turn it, though, the door swung open violently, slamming into Michelle's face. "Ow! Jesus!"

"Hello, my friends!" With that, Lucy Ono announced her arrival into the dorm.

Michelle glared at her as she rubbed her sore nose. "Do you _ever_ knock, huh?" She then noticed what Lucy was holding in her hands. "My carafe!" she exclaimed as she grabbed the container away from Lucy. It was then that she noticed that her carafe had been modified just a tad bit. "My carafe… has a clock and wires and shit attached to it." She glowered at Lucy once again. "What did you do to _my_ carafe, you nutcase!?"

"Oh, is it yours? I just found it in the kitchen a couple of days ago and figured no one wanted it." Lucy replied, shrugging. "But you should be happy! Your thermos has become part of a landmark in scientific research!"

Michelle made a face at Lucy. "Oh, I'm ecstatic," she replied in a deadpan manner, shoving the carafe back into Lucy's arms. "I'm _thrilled_ that my carafe – which you didn't ask to borrow, by the way, even though I'm sure you knew it was mine, you lying sow – has become part of your crazy little science project."

Sadie closed her laptop and climbed out of bed. "What's all this, then?" she asked, looking over the carafe.

Lucy smiled brightly at this. "Thank you for asking, Sadie. At least someone cares about scientific progress." She sniffled at this, which only made Michelle roll her eyes. "Anyway, this normal, everyday thermos – "

"Carafe!" Michelle yelled, correcting her.

Lucy ignored her. "–­ Is now a dimensional teleportation device!"

"Ooh!" Sadie squealed immediately. The wheels slowly turned in her head, and after a couple moments of thinking, she asked, "What does that mean?"

"It means that I can take this little device right here and teleport myself to any other dimension anywhere in time and space. Isn't it exciting?" Lucy explained with a twinkle in her almond-shaped eyes.

Michelle's eyes widened at this. "Oh, no," she groaned. "You're screwing around with the space-time continuum _again? _Don't you remember what happened the _last_ time?"

"So I made a couple of missteps…" Lucy weakly laughed.

Sadie was not content to let that memory pass her by without a mention. "Oh, I remember! Lucy had made that time machine portal thingy, and she accidentally teleported a Tyrannosaurus into the middle of the math building!" She giggled at this. "And it ate one of the football players, and we couldn't have math class for two months, on account of the building being destroyed and all."

Michelle nodded. "Yeah, that was sad."

"Are you joking? It was wicked!" Sadie replied. "I was failing algebra that semester, anyway."

"But let us forget about the past, my friends!" Lucy cried, shoving herself in between Michelle and Sadie to protect Sadie from the head slap she was sure to receive for that comment. "Today, we shall embark on the future and test this baby out!"

"We? What's this 'we' business?" Michelle inquired, a disapproving look on her face. "I don't remember volunteering for anything."

"Oh, okay, don't help me test this out, then." Lucy responded with a sigh. "I'll just have to let the football team know just who deliberately _tripped_ their star quarterback in front of that Tyrannosaurus in her effort to get away…"

With that, Michelle bit her bottom lip in embarrassment. She then placed her hand over her chest and said, "Lucy, it would be an honor and a privilege to help you test your dimensional whatchamacallit."

"Awesome!" Lucy exclaimed happily. "What about you, Sadie? You up for a little dimension hopping?"

"Well, it all depends." Sadie rolled her green eyes heavenward in thought. "If I agree to this, will this mean I get out of my history exam tomorrow?"

Lucy smiled. "Sadie, if you agree to this, I'll take the test _for_ you." She then muttered almost inaudibly, "If we survive, that is."

Before Michelle could question what exactly Lucy had said, Sadie let out an ear-piercing scream of utter joy, the likes of which had not been heard since the latest crop of boy bands went on hiatus. "Oh, I am in!" she said, bouncing up and down and clapping her hands excitedly.

"So, how does this stupid thing work, anyway?" Michelle asked, looking the device over and tugging gently on a couple of wires.

"Pretty simple, really. First, I set the dimensional readout display, like so." Lucy then pressed the snooze button on top of the clock, and the LED reading on the clock set itself randomly. "Then, I need a hot pot of coffee." She looked over at the coffee maker, which had a fresh-brewed pot of coffee sitting on it. "Aha! Perfect!"

Michelle raised an eyebrow at Lucy. "And what does the coffee do?"

Lucy placed the carafe on the table next to the coffee maker and started pouring the coffee into it. "Gives us something to drink when we get to the other dimension." She then looked up at Michelle and grinned. When Michelle did not return the smile and instead gave her a dirty look, Lucy pouted. "Well, you can't expect me to give away all my secrets, can you? A scientist has to protect her inventions from being blatantly copied before they're copyrighted."

"She has a point, you know," Sadie added solemnly.

"Shut up, you," Michelle retorted. "Anyway, what's the next step?"

"Well, the next step is actually the last step, which is to take hold of the handle and go," Lucy replied excitedly. "You two ready?"

"Ready!" Sadie exclaimed as she grabbed a hold of Lucy's pink t-shirt.

Michelle just barely took hold of Lucy's sleeve. "Yeah, whatever. Just make sure we don't get sent into a dimension where we get eaten or blown into atoms, okay?"

"Of course I won't!" Lucy answered confidently. "Not on purpose, anyway."

Michelle's face paled at this. "Hey, now, wait a min--!"

Before Michelle could finish her sentence, Lucy grabbed a hold of the carafe's handle. In a flash of light and a puff of smoke, they were gone.


	2. Grandfather Paradox What?

**It Can Happen Here**

**By:** Snarktastic (better known as Snarky)

**Disclaimer: "**Newsies" belongs to Disney. I own the original characters, I guess. That's all about I can say on the subject, really.

**Author's**** Notes: **Yes, here's Chapter 2 – and still no Newsies. Yet. Next chapter, I promise!

The title of this chapter comes from the "grandfather paradox," which is the paradox that argues against backwards time travel. It basically says that, if you go back in time and kill your own grandfather before he met your grandmother, you wouldn't exist, which means you couldn't have traveled back in time in the first place. Confusing, ain't it?

* * *

**Chapter 2:** _Grandfather Paradox What?_

In an instant, they found themselves in a dark alleyway between two buildings. There was only one light illuminating a doorway in this alley, and the girls now found themselves standing in front of it.

"–ute!" Michelle finished her sentence. She then looked around the alleyway as she placed her hands on her hips, looking more than a little afraid.

"Darling costumes, Lucy," Sadie stated with a frown as she looked over at Michelle and Lucy. "Now why did ya think it was appropriate to stick us in these things?"

Michelle and Lucy looked over at Sadie, then gave themselves a look over. They had somehow been stripped of their modern clothing and dressed in decidedly Victorian attire – corsets, petticoats, bodices, long skirts that reached past their ankles, and pointed boots.

"I didn't stick us in these clothes," Lucy replied. "I guess the dimensional teleportation device thought it appropriate to change our clothes to something more in keeping with the dimension we've landed in." She raised an eyebrow. "I think."

"Well, crap," Michelle could only say, a bit stunned by this. "Where the hell are we, then?"

Lucy carefully studied the LED readout on the dimensional teleportation device and then looked around at their surroundings. "According to my calculations," she stated confidently, "I don't have a clue."

Michelle stammered incredulously, "You – you don't – what do you mean, you don't have a clue?" Her face began to twist in anger. "You take _my_ carafe and make it into some dimensional thingamabob, talk us into testing it for you, and _now_ you're telling me you don't know where we are?"

Lucy held a hand up in a defensive position. "Well, this is new territory for me," she explained, her voice cracking from nervousness. "See, I know our coordinates, but I don't know exactly what dimension we're in." Wanting to break the tension, she let out a small laugh and added, "It's not like there's a 'Big Book of Dimension Coordinates' I can use to look up where we are, you know."

Michelle let out a sigh, her body relaxing. How she hated it when Lucy made sense. She then cracked a smile. "Well, did you check EBay for one, at least? That place has everything."

"Damn!" Lucy grinned, snapping her fingers. "I knew I forgot to check something!"

Michelle's next quip died in her throat when she heard a noise a loud, insistent rapping sound against the door. She turned to see Sadie knocking. "Ah, shit," she muttered to herself.

"Sadie!" Lucy exclaimed, pulling the other girl's hand away from the door. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Well, I figured that, since we don't know where we are, I'd just knock on this door and ask somebody." Sadie gave a self-satisfied smile at this, as if she had just come up with a brilliant idea.

"That's the thing, you moron – we don't know what kind of people we're dealing with here!" Michelle hissed. "The person behind that door could be a-a _murderer_ or a drug dealer…"

The door suddenly swung inward, revealing the voluptuous, flame haired star of Irving Hall, Medda Larkson.

"…Or an old broad in a red wig," Michelle uttered quietly, earning a stifled giggle and a gentle elbow to the ribs from Lucy.

Medda studied each of their faces before realization dawned on her face. "You are late!" she snapped, grabbing Sadie's arm roughly. "You go on in a half hour!"

"We do – GAH!" Sadie yelled as she was yanked through the doorway by the arm. "Michelleeeeee!" she whined.

Michelle sighed heavily. "I guess we should go help her, huh?" she grumbled weakly. She started walking into the building, her shoulders drooping. "Stupid Sadie…"

"But what am I supposed to do with this?" Lucy whispered, pointing at the dimensional teleportation device.

"I dunno – just stash it behind a garbage can or something." Michelle shrugged, not caring at this point. "We'll come get it later after we save Sadie's ass. Again."

Lucy sighed sadly at this. She did not want to leave such an important invention near trash, but leaving it behind for a little while was better than someone asking too many questions was. She gave it a quick hug and hid it behind a garbage can before hurrying inside the building.

The backstage at Irving Hall was abuzz with activity that night. Everyone from the biggest names in burlesque comedy to the lowliest belly dancer mingled there, practicing their routines while jostling for position on the bill.

This was the scene that Sadie was dragged into, which made her abruptly stop her whining. She didn't know where she was and didn't particularly care – all she knew is that, where there's a backstage, there's a front stage, and that meant **performing**! She turned her head toward Lucy and Michelle, who were both still following behind her, and grinned excitedly.

"What in the world are you smiling about?" Michelle whispered as they stopped in the middle of the activity.

"Isn't it obvious?" Sadie replied. "We're going to perform onstage!" Her eyes practically sparkled with stars as she said this.

Michelle's now saucer-like eyes, coupled with her furrowed brow, told of an entirely different emotion altogether. "Perform?" she gulped. "Onstage?" Her face then went deadpan. "You perform onstage. We're leaving. Come along, Lucy." She grabbed Lucy by the arm and started for the back door.

They didn't even make it two steps before Medda cleared her throat, making them stop in their tracks. "So, I take it the Apple sisters refuse to perform tonight – am I correct?"

Michelle looked over her shoulder, looking completely confused. "Who?" she asked, a squeak in her voice.

"You are the Apple sisters, aren't you?" Medda asked, folding her arms across her chest while giving them a quizzical look.

"Nah," Michelle replied with a shake of her head.

"I see what's going on!" Lucy declared, grinning to Michelle. "You see what's going on? It's all a big misunderstanding." She walked toward Medda, still smiling at her. "You've got us mixed up with these Apple sisters you're talking about. I guess we must sorta resemble them or something, but we assure you that we're not them."

"Oh, so I'm the one who's mistaken, am I?" Medda said, nodding. "Okay, well – if you can honestly tell me that the girls on that poster over there are not you three, I'll gladly let you go." She pointed over to a huge poster sitting in a corner of the room.

"Piece of cake!" Lucy answered with a snap of her fingers and a haughty grin as the three girls wandered over to the poster. With one good look at the poster, however, Lucy's confident demeanor faltered as her jaw dropped.

"Oh…" Michelle said softly as she laid her eyes on the poster. "Oh, damn…"

Sadie looked down at the poster. Rubbing her chin, she stated, "You know, those girls look incredibly familiar."

Michelle could not help but glare at Sadie as she raised a hand, intending on smacking the ever-loving mess out of her. Lucy grabbed a hold of Michelle's wrist to prevent this, since the last thing she needed at this point was Sadie wailing and making a scene. She sighed, "That's because they're _us_, Sadie. Don't tell me you can't you see the resemblance."

Sadie tilted her head, studying it more closely. Sure, there were three dancing Apple sisters on the poster, just like there were three of them. Okay, and one was African-American, like Michelle, while another was Asian-American, like Lucy. Moreover, they _did_ look like Michelle and Lucy, at any rate. She still had one question about the brown-haired girl that was supposedly her, however. "I'm not really that much shorter than you two, am I?" she inquired, still looking at the poster.

"I'm more interested in how our pictures got on this poster, frankly." Michelle sneered, pulling her arm away from Lucy and rubbing her wrist.

"And I'm more concerned about where exactly we are; did you happen to notice the date on this poster here?" Lucy said with a nod toward the poster.

Michelle shook her head and then began to start reading the poster just loud enough so they could hear. "Let's see… 'Irving Hall, The Home of Big Attractions, Another Talk-Of-The-Town New Year's Eve Show'…" She nearly choked on her spit as she saw the next line. "December 31st, 1899?"

Lucy placed a finger over her lips, trying to get Michelle to be quiet. "Shh!"

"Shh?" Michelle whispered with a glare. "Don't tell me to 'shh!' How am I supposed to 'shh' when we've ended up more than a hundred years in the past, thanks to you and your crazy-ass invention?"

Before Lucy could answer, they heard that now-familiar, strangely accented voice. "So. What have you girls decided?" Medda asked, her arms still crossed. "Are you going onstage tonight or not?"

"No!" Michelle shouted as they turned to face Medda.

"Yes!" Sadie and Lucy replied in unison.

Michelle turned to them, looking completely shocked by this. "What?" she blurted out.

"Good!" Medda smiled, clasping her hands together excitedly. "I'll have Louisa prepare your costumes for tonight." With that, she walked away quickly to find her helper.

As soon as Medda was out of earshot, Michelle huffed, "Would you two care to explain why we're going to be performing as these Apple sisters when we're **not **them?"

"Because it's fun!" Sadie answered with a smile.

"And because they think we are the Apple sisters, so we've gotta play along until we can figure out a way to get out of here," Lucy added, placing an arm around Michelle's shoulders. "So, come along, sister dear – we have a performance to somehow throw together in twenty minutes!"

"That's another thing!" Michelle exclaimed. "What in the hell are we gonna do for this performance, huh? I'm not exactly a song and dance kind of person, you know."

Sadie waved her off. "I'm a musical theater major, remember? Just leave everything to me!"

"Leave everything to you?" Michelle repeated incredulously. "Isn't that what Custer said to his troops at Little Big Horn?"

"Oh, come on…" Lucy rolled her eyes and gently pushed Michelle along.


End file.
